A Red Dwarf Story
by Garry2rs
Summary: Question. Are the crew of Star Bug behind it all or is it one big hoax? And is Rimmer the Father of Rock And Roll? Is this story going to clear it all up?
1. Chapter 1

My Third re-write of this story (due to crashes and missing disks) and I've finally finishedafter first starting sometime in 2003!And Miles shorter than the lost original.

Garry2rs 03/07

**A Red Dwarf Story**

Chapter 1

In space no-one can hear you scream, unless you leave the lid off the salad cream then your in real trouble. It all started when it was The Cats turn to pick the activity to do to break the monotony of traveling aimlessly in space. Choosing to investigate a region that shone and sparkled like one of his many suits, the Jupiter Mining Corporation vehicle 'Star Bug' flew straight into an area that made the craft plummet down to crash into a desert on some unknown greeny-blue planetoid, it was either that or the string holding together the left thruster had slipped its 'granny knot' and the whole thing had gone kaputski.

"So Kryten, what's the situation?" asks Kochanski adjusting her top

"I have checked the state of the engines and they are operational, but"

"But what?" says Rimmer butting in.

"As I was about to say Sir is as Star Bug has crashed and been repaired more times than Evil Knevil, that almost all the spare and replacement parts have all but gone"

"So what's left?" asks Lister

"The only items left are several deck plates, a couple of circuit boards for the air conditioning unit and a whole box of replacement elastic bands for the next time the fluffy dice fall apart,

we will have to go out and trade with the local inhabitants in the vain hope that their level of evolutionary technology is higher than that of the average Skoda, in fact if they had a Skoda we would probably get all the parts we needed out of that"

"Out and trade?" moans The Cat, "It's the gelf fiasco all over again"

"Gelf fiasco?" inquires Kochanski

"Yeah" says Lister replying, "All O.G. units, facial orifices and weddings and stuff"

"Oh! Your wife! Anyway don't you remember your Space Corps training in situations like this? No, you were probably too busy logging on to www dot big juggs to pay any attention. In an emergency situation, you must use any needs necessary within the home planets bylaws to purchase slash barter for the items required"

"Sirs, Ma-am, we should also be grateful of the fact that we crashed on an inhabited planet and not ended up endlessly floating in space like the toilet on 'C' deck that just won't flush, at least this way we have an outside chance of surviving" Kryten then starts pressing buttons at his work station.

"Kryters? Did you just launch the distress beacon?" asks Lister

"It 'is' standard procedure Sir"

"Oh no,no,no"

"What's the matter Listy? Are you mourning after that poor excuse of a weather balloon as you have some secret inflatable rubber fetish"

"Well erm, kinda"

"What do you mean kind of?"

"Let me put it this way, when the original balloon burst way back, and I could only find one erm other 'inflatable' object to take its place"

"Ingrid!" Rimmer calls out in anguish

"Hey I'm not a real monster, at least I filled her up with helium and reattached the distress beacon, ok maybe it wasn't a distress beacon"

"What was it?"

" Ok don't be mad, but the only thing I could find that produced a signal was the radio from the store room. I did at least tune it into Jazz Fm"

"There's always something else. Something to smeg my smegging day up!"

Kryten looks up after finishing his work,"I've just finished my preliminary scans of the surrounding area"

"What's the verdict?" asks Kochanski, "Is it bazookoids at the ready or does Lister have to get hitched to King Kong's uglier sister again?"

"Baggsy its Rimmer!" shouts Lister

"Second!" calls out The Cat

"Hey!" moans Rimmer

Kochanski waits for the boys to settle down before asking Kryten to carry on.

"You were saying..."

"As you know, Star Bug has come down into a desert on the Western continent. The scan shows there is a small town several miles south of our present location but our best bet would be to head East to the nearest road that leads into the town and see if we can't hitch a ride, I'll set Star Bugs cloaking device so its invisible to the local inhabitants" and he goes over to one of the ships computer terminals and enters the code to initialize the cloak.

"Fan-smegging-tastic." Says a dejected Rimmer "Ok lets get a move on then and get it over and done with" and with that he goes over to the airlock and presses the release button. The door psst's open and as Rimmer walks forward, the outside door opens and steps automatically lower down to the hot desert floor.

Hot and sweaty, the gang makes their relatively short journey over to a well worn beaten track of road that shimmers in the heat and disappears into the distance whatever way you looked down it. Old styled vehicles rattle passed as Lister runs up the road a few yards to read an old battered road sign, he wipes the face with the outside of his cuff and reads what he can see.

"For what I can make out, It says 'OSWE' 33 kilometers"

"Where's OSWE?" asks The Cat mopping his brow with a neatly folded handkerchief

"Perhaps we are in pig world" laughs Kochanski

"Eh?"

"Don't you get it OSWE, O.S.W.E it's an anagram of sow, you know a female pig? Ok so it's not quite right but you know what I mean"

There's a pause whilst the magnitude of that joke sinks in.

"Anyhow" says Rimmer breaking the silence, "How are we going to get into town? Do you expect me to walk all that way? I'm not Paula Radcliffe"

"Well, you are fond if Lycra" says The Cat who's starting to get upset, "Come on, Come on, lets get a move on" and starts pacing off the down the road.

"What's got into him?" questions Rimmer

Lister calls out after him, "Cat come back!" slightly frustrated

"Why should I?"

"Because, this truck is going to give us a lift!"

And at that moment, an old rusty green open backed truck with the obligatory caged chickens on the back and white bearded bib and brace wearing, twin of Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazzard old man driving it, pulls up and stops next to where Lister and the rest are standing, he leans over knocking the gearshift and calls out of the open passenger window.

"You fella's need a lift into town?"

"Yes we..."

"What the hell are you boy?" The old coot says roughly pointing in Krytens direction.

"My name is Kryten, I'm a Four Thous..."But before he could finish, The Cat had come back and cupped his mouth with his hand.

"Oh don't mind him" says Lister coming up with a cover story, "He only looks like that because he's been standing out in the desert too long and it's sandblasted his face"

The coot seemed quite happy with this and beckoned the crew aboard his truck.

"My name's Jack, by the way, Hey and what the hell are you!" he calls out

"I'm a woman!" says Kochanski indignantly with hands on hips. Lister offers his hand to help her up onto the back of the truck and she sits down roughly knocking one of the chicken cages causing the birds to get agitated. "Oh, cluck off".

"I'd cover your eyes 'till we hit town if I were you, it can get awful dirty out there, you don't wanna be getting any sand in them"

With a crunch of the gear stick and a jerk, the truck pulls off again and on to the road, the gang obligingly cover there faces which in hindsight of what was going to happen to them was a bad mistake as they didn't see the convoy of green trucks heading in the opposite direction, if they had, it would have been a lot easier than its going to be.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The truck rumbled its way down the desert road before turning down into a side streets on the outskirts of town which were happily named things like Broken Dreams Boulevard, Lonely Street and Heartache Avenue before eventually coming to a sharp halt halfway down the high street called appropriately the High Street, presumably all the miserable names had been used up so at this point everybody gets out/off the truck and onto the sidewalk dusting themselves down as they go.

"Thanks ever-so-muchly" says Rimmer, "By the way whilst we have your undivided attention could you please inform me where we might be able to get some supplies from from around here?"

"Rimmer, look you dork"

"You be standing outside my shop right now, Zeke's Hardware, "

And there it was, an old fashioned hardware store similar to the ones you see in old western movies with brooms and metal watering cans hanging on hooks around the doorway, the main display window had a triangular stack of Clarks patented medicine, a garish purple looking liquid that says it will 'cure what ails you' printed on the label and of course Zekes Hardware in gold arched writing across the glass.

Yes sir, finest hardware shop in the district, one day my son Michael will inherit it from me, he works over at the nearby ai.." "Hang about isn't your name Jack?" say The Cat butting in

"I don't think we have to worry about that at the moment" says Kryten taking over the conversation "I have a rather extensive list of items we need but probably the most important of these is a piece of rubber piping of about two inches in diameter by about twelve inches long"

"I saw a bit like that in goalpost heads room"

"What are you doing going into my room?"

"Er, I found out someone was stealing your duvets, I was just putting it back for you"

"What were you doing with a bit of rubber pipe that long?" questions Kochanski marking the size out with her hands "You don't stick it down your…"

"Let's not go there Ma'am"

"Nobody else does!" says Lister quick as a flash whilst making the internationally recognized hand gesture for something really, really small

And with a Lister quip like that Rimmer turns away and accidentally bumps into a young man carrying a guitar coming the other way.

"Oh sorry" Rimmer says without meaning it

After a few seconds he looks and see's that the man was still there

"Yes? What is it?" he snaps

"I'm looking for a hotel" Rimmer um's not listening but from his accent he could tell he wasn't a local.

Slightly frustrated the man asks "I need a place to dwell since my baby left me, can you help me out?"

"How very sad she left you. You've got a guitar why don't you write a smegging song about it, Oh hang on. Excuse me"

"E' what is it?"

"This greased up country yokel with the girly hair is looking for a hotel?"

"I there be one on Lonely Street"

"You heard the man Lonely Street, down there…..go on shoo, vamoose"

"Thank you very much" says the man as he turns to make his way down the road.

"Goit"

"Rimmer man" calls out Lister "Cat, Krissie and Me are going over to that Diner across the road whilst Kryter's is getting the gear, he said he'd be a while, you coming man?"

"Yeah ok"

A brass bell 'dings' as the gang make their way inside the White Sands Diner as it was so named on the sign above the entrance. Along the left hand side of this typical looking American diner is a long counter 'D' shaping its way along with evenly spaced red leather looking stools running up the side, behind this is the kitchen from which an old crackly vaguely recognizable song was playing out of some unseen radio. To the right are a number of high backed table booths also clad in faux-par red leather. As the door 'dings' close, a woman appears from the kitchen, she looks just like Jack.

"Do you think that's Jacks missus?" asks The Cat under his breath, "Unless he run round behind us got through the back door, put on a dress, put on and apron and his up hair in curlers? Or are we just in inbred redneck world?"

"Ssshh," says Kochanski approaching the counter, "Table for four please"

The woman looks them all up and down as if she could be bothered to serve them as as far as they could see there was only one other customer in the diner at that time; sipping coffee about halfway down is a woman in her early thirties who had red bobbed hair and wearing a long rain coat or what Lister would describe as a 'flashers Mac'.

"Liz!" she says in a voice not dissimilar to Jacks, "Customers"

From out of one of the booths a pretty young girl with long dark hair pulled up into a ponytail behind a generic white waitress's hat and uniform says goodbye to her boyfriend who was also in the booth, he makes his way out of the back door and for some reason had curiously just pointed up to the sky. She walks up to them, book with pencil in her left hand and a couple of menus in the other.

"If she's inbred then make me one of those in a sandwich!" says Lister

This remark makes Kochanski elbow him in the ribs.

"Table for four was it?" as she hands over the menus leading them to the nearest empty booth.

The gang make themselves comfortable and start to relax a bit as they peruse the menu, meanwhile the redheaded woman has asked the woman behind the counter who just happens to really be Jacks wife where there is a telephone she could use. Receiving this information, she heads to the back of the Diner where the phone is situated near the toilets and the back door.

"Ready to order?"

"You don't have anything here that hasn't been inhumanely killed, bludgeoned to death have you? Or is it all just roadkill specials is it?" says Kochanski

The waitress smiles politely and gently turns over Kochanski's menu.

"The specials?"

"Ah, Thank you, I'll have the king prawn and side salad"

"King prawn," questions The Cat "I didn't know fish had there own royalty"

Lister pushes The Cat back into his seat and says boldly "Er,Me to"

"You eating something other that curry?" Rimmer said with an air of uncertainty. "Are you I'll?"

"I just thought I'd try something new ok? And I thought it be quicker if we all ordered the same thing, besides there's no Chicken Tikka on here".

"Isn't that an Abba song?" questions Kochanski

"No that's Chiquitta. Alright, alright ,alright, alright, if it makes you happy. I'll have the same". Rimmer says with a sickly smile to the waitress whose face turns like it was just made to taste something sour.

"And for you Sir" she says addressing The Cat

"HE'LL HAVE THE FISH" they all say simultaneously

The waitress writes down the order and goes towards the counter, then in a high shrill voice unbecoming of someone her age and beauty she calls out "Martha! Order!'

"Well Gentlemen and Ladies, yes I'm also referring to you to Listy when I say that, this is a turn up for the books, one of our many excursions away from the ship actually turning out quite well. Krytens off getting the supplies, we're about to have a slap up meal and run out on the bill, well I haven't got any money have you? And I'm sure that hot looking waitress is giving me those 'come round behind the dumpster and give me it big boy eyes'. I confidently predict that this will be our easiest mission ever".

And at that moment on the 'E' of ever there's an almighty crash. From the back door and from the front (breaking off the brass bell), at least twenty members of the armed forces smash there way into the Diner, guns raised and locked into firing position onto a booth, a booth that contained a Mr Lister, a Mr Rimmer, a Miss Kochanski and a Mr Cat.

"Oh smeg"

"Step out of the booth slowly!" bellows a voice "Hands where we can see them"

The gang edge there way out.

"Stay there!"

Soldiers then rapidly close in on the Star Bug crew and force them to march at gunpoint out of the main door.

Meanwhile prior to all the excitement over the road, Kryten is slowly making his way out of Zeke's hardware. Over one shoulder is an overly large green rucksack with a strange concoction on items sticking out of the top. A large green truck pulls up across the road. Wrapped around the other shoulder is a thick heavy rope, its seemingly caught on something in the shop as its presently sticking horizontally out of the doorway. Kryten twists and turns as he pulls the heavy rope first leaning forward with the rope over his shoulder and then 'tug of war' position muttering to himself as he pulls. Slowly the rope emerges from out of the shop doorway. On the end of it is a very stubborn and over laden with saddle bags (and the like) baying mule.

"Oh come on Concorde (as that was the mules name) will you!"

"EE'ORR!"

"Hey you with the ass!"

"Thanks" says The Cat as he emerges under guard from across the road before being bundled into the truck along with the rest of the crew.

Kryten looks up. There across the road are several well armed army men and a red-haired woman brandishing a pistol, all their guns are pointed at him. He try's running round and ducking around behind the mule but seemingly for the first time at bays loudly and trots off at pace leaving him with his hands over his head completely unprotected. The red-haired woman flicks her gun in the direction of some soldiers who break off and come over and man handle Kryten over to the back of the green truck and 'influence' him into the rear where inside he's forced to sit down next to the other prisoners.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The entire crew of the JMC transport vehicle Star Bug had lost track of time. It had been several hours since their arrest by members of the army, since that time, they had been sitting on the single bunk bed inside a brick and iron barred prison cell. Outside the door, guards had been posted who occasionally paced up and down in front looking in at there captors. Boredom had set in so plans for escape had now arrived on the agenda after all the finger pointing had petered out as soon as everyone had realized that they were 'just unlucky'.

"So have any of you guys had any ideas of a possible escape plan?" says Kochanski finally raising the question.

"I'll handle this!" says Rimmer standing up confidently pulling his jacket straight as he marches over to the bars.

He calls over one of the guards and whispers something into his ear, then moments later with an "Urgh!" Rimmer struggles back keeled over holding his stomach after being the recipient of a rifle butt shot to the gut.

"That's not going to work" he utters struggling for breath.

Kryten addresses the group. "I've been postulating an answer to our current situation; I have come up with two possible solutions. One, that Miss Kochanski has better luck with the guards than Mr Rimmer by seducing one of them getting said guard so enticed by her inny and outy bits that he will not notice her stealing the cell keys, so when the guards change posts, we sneak out and find our way back home"

"That's your plan?" questions Kochanski "Sorry but I'm not trying that!"

"Why not?" asks The Cat.

"Because it's demeaning, I'm not the sort of girl who goes around flirting with the first man in uniform I meet, if anything it's always the other way round"

"Oh yeah?" asks Lister taking an interest.

"Well like when er, my ex boyfriend Tim..."

"Oh here we go again" Lister grumbles

"Well if you DON'T want to hear"

"Ok, ok I'm sorry please continue talking about '_your ex boyfriend Tim' _(putting on a voice), I'm sooo interested"

"Humph, So when 'Tim' was first chatting me up he used to say he would like say how pretty my hair was or buy me chocolates, but the one thing that really stands out in my mind is when he said he would take me on a trip around Uranus, which was funny as a Chef he didn't have a pilots license and there's no rings around, Why are you all giggling?"

"Don't you realize what you just said?" says The Cat "Even I know that one!"

"What one?"

"Miss Kochanski it's…" But Kryten cannot finish his sentence before standing up and hiding his face in the corner so he could hide the biggest smile that had ever come across his face.

"Oh come on guys," she says getting a little frustrated.

"You really don't know do you?" Rimmer smirks

"It's the classic line, it's the one what all and I mean ALL the men on board Red Dwarf knew as the line you said to girls when you wanted to have sex with them" Lister informs behind a grin

"No? Really? You mean"

"Yep first of all you're saying the name of the planet all wrong, and secondly…"

"No don't tell me I Don't want to know"

"But he's getting to the best part!" exclaims The Cat "It's all about…"

"NO!" say the rest of the male crew together (well it IS quite rude!)

"Look" says Rimmer a whisper "New guard".

The new guard looks in at the prisoners, he looks very familiar.

"Do you think that's Michael, Jack's son" asks Rimmer

"Nah that's a spotty adolescent in an army uniform, that's never Michael Jackson" reply's Lister

"He was some fella with a plastic bonce, he would never survive in the heat of that desert, first time he went out in it it would melt off and be endlessly scooping bits of face up out of the sand"

"No Michael, JACK'S son, not Michael Jackson you gimp, you know the yokel who gave us a lift into town"

"Oh yeah," realizes The Cat "Do you think if we mention his father to him he would help us?"

The guard who really is Michael, Jack's son, see's the group staring at them immediately turns his rifle towards them pointing it through the bars.

"Stay There!" he shouts

Another guard appears from around a nearby corner and approaches the cell door, inserts a key from a large bunch hanging from his waist and pushes the door open.

"Get up! Captain Twinning wants to talk to you" Gesturing with his gun, the gang stands up and follow the guards to meet with Captain Twinning.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In a stark white painted room with bare stone walls, fortified window and loose strip light, an old heavy desk sits pushed up against the wall under that window with the items of Krytens shopping trip lay neatly labeled, the Dwarfers on the other hand sat along the far wall away from the side door on cheap metal folding seats under heavy guard.

"No Talking!" said Michael clearly in some stress perhaps because of what he said next.

"The Captains' on his way"

And at that precise moment the door opens and in walks two men flanked by two more soldiers, one of the men (the one whose wearing a suit) goes to the back of the room and lights up a cigarette while the other uniformed man turns and addresses his detainee's and by some strange coincidence or is it fate, this man Captain Twinning looks just like a certain other Captain on a deep space mining vessel called "Red Dwarf".

"These are the aliens?" he says looking round at the smoking man.

"Aliens? Where?" asks Rimmer.

"He is talking about us" answers Kryten whose chair is slowly crushing under his weight.

"Hey, we're no aliens, ok so _he_ may have strange pointy teeth and this one may look like an overly used car crash dummy, but we're no Uurgh!" Rimmer gets another rifle butt to the stomach.

"Quiet!" shouts the Captain, he takes his hat revealing a balding head with a white clump of hair in the middle that looks like someone had stapled (badly) a lump of cotton wool, this produces sniggers not only from the crew but also his own men.

"Shut Up!" he yells and quickly replaces his hat abet slightly askew. He paces up and down in front of them as he talks "Now, you creatures from beyond the sky have as many rights as a south paw, now tell me, what's your mission here on earth alien scum?" his glare finishes on Lister.

"Oh that!" Lister exclaims wiping his shirt with the cuff of his jacket, "It's probably a bit of Krytens space nettle soup" He pulls his shirt out so Kryten can see and he nods in agreement.

"Stay still!" And a guard goes and rifle butts Rimmer in the stomach again.

"Urrgh!"

"No mission" says Kryten "We just wanted to get some supplies"

"Did you get them from my Pa's shop?" asks Michael, Jack's son taking an interest talking to Kochanski "I could have got you a discount"

She smiles sweetly back to him "Could you? That's so nice"

"Well if he knows we shop at Pa's store you can let us go right?" The Cat says and gets up to leave.

This time it's the Cat who gets the rifle butt to the gut.

"JOZXYQK!" he cries out as he gingerly makes his way back to his chair.

"Hah!" Rimmer's happy it wasn't him this time.

Captain Twinning gestures towards one of the guards who leaves the room.

"Right back to business. We found a part of your craft" The crew look stunned at this revelation as the smoking man hands over a folder " What can you tell me about it! What is its primary function?"

The door opens and a guard comes in pushing a metal gurney looking trolley, on top is some strange item emitting an odd noise covered by a white sheet.

The Captain pulls off the white sheet. In front of them in a clearly battered state lay a sand battered radio attached to a slowly deflating female shaped object known as Ingrid.

Quick as a flash Lister points out to Rimmer "Hey! Your girlfriends back!"

Rimmers face at this point is like a lovesick schoolgirl pining after some boyband.

"What is it?" Captain Twinning says

"Is it Cantaloupe, Flip fantasia by US3" asks Kochanski

"Nah it's never that! Its Take Five by Quincy Jones" The Cat informs "What? You think I never listened to that station whilst at the controls of"

"Shussh!"

"The controls!" Twinning twists the controls on the front of the radio.

"Arsenal 1 Tottenham Hotspur 3, Southend United 4 Tranme" the transmission cuts off in a loud squeal.

"Hey! I was listening to that!" Rimmer protests

"No back on Star Bug" The Cat corrects "Dam! I wasn't supposed to say that was I? What a smeghead"

"AH Ha! So there IS a craft out there! See I told you" he says to the smoking man who gestures back an 'oh well'. "Guard can you take this, this item (holding Ingrid) to my private quarters, I want to investigate it more thoroughly"

"Pervert" Kochanski whispers.

"Listen, I want you to direct us to your Steer Bud craft, if not President Eisenhower will be personally presiding over your morning autopsy! Oh don't worry we WILL be shooting you first"

There's a pause as the gang think.

"Come on, we haven't got all day, well I have, you lot are dead before breakfast July 8th" He waits

"Hold on, hold on, we're thinking" a panicked the voice of The Cat cries out. The crew are huddled in serious talks.

"Do you Want to be locked up, shot? Is that what you want? If operation paperclip is to succeed, we need your cooperation in recovering your craft and _maybe_ you might just spend the rest of your lives rotting in some jail cell in hanger 84 with the occasional visit to the science lab where our German doctor will run tests and probably some anal probing. You aliens are the most exciting thing to happen in Roswell in decades, we have no tourism to speak of and one's we Do get are either lost or need to fill up with gas because they are lost".

"Hang about? Did he say Roswell?" Rimmer asks

"Did you say Roswell?" Kochanski asks the Captain who's getting that puzzled look.

"Yes I did, Why do you ask?"

"Of course! Roswell, Hanger 84" Kryten says to the Dwarf posse. "It's all fits into place. Do you know what that represents?"

"That we're not actually in pig world?" poses a confused Cat.

"It means that we have may have just found a way out of here" Lister says taking over the conversation "Captain Twinning is it? What would you say if we came up with something that would make you look good and bring in a tourist trade to your town at could become a Mecca for every nerd, geek, loser and conspiracy nut in the world, in exchange you let us go free"

"Go free!? Really?" The smoking man comes up and whispers something in the Captains ear, he nods in cautious agreement" Ok, ok let me hear you idea, but how are we going to explain away your presence and ours in town and to the president! The local press have already rang my office several times already today asking questions and poor old Mavis she's nearing retirement age and she just can't handle all those irritable people down the other end of the phone"

"Oh there no problem at all" says Kochanski trying to be helpful "I became a dab hand at things like that, like when my ex boyfriend Tim (not _him _again Lister moans) used to keep harassing me after we broke up. I always knew how to handle his testy calls"

There's a pause while everybody catches up to react to what she just said.

"That's very interesting….anyway"

"Couldn't you just say it was like a weather balloon or something?" The Cat asks.

"How did you know about that" Lister whispers to him

"About what?"

"Yes just lie about it, oh I don't know err three times or so. Call it project Skyhook or something like that" Rimmer adds.

"And if you permit me access to those saddle bags I believe we can come up with something to clinch the deal". Kryten has the last word.

Epilogue

In a bustling town somewhere in New Mexico where the shops are full of customers who have been bussed in just to be in the place where it all took place all those years ago, a young man runs through the streets clutching an old cylindrical metal film can tightly to his chest. He bumps passed people in his willingness to get to his destination almost getting run over as he crosses the street outside the recently renamed Michael's Extraterrestrial Hardware by the new owner who screeches to a halt just in time. Pass the diner and down a side street he stops and knocks on an old wooden door, the door opens and closes quickly barely giving him the time to get in, from there he quickly follows his friend down into a damp basement.

"Did you get it?"

"I got it"

"Ok I managed to get the old projector from the school but we will have to use this whitewashed wall to play it against"

"I don't care as long as it's the real thing. Do you realize how much trouble I could get in with my father if he new I had this? I'll be beyond grounded, I think..."

"No don't say it lets just set it up, watch the thing and get it back before anything untoward happens"

The running man gently eases the lid off the film canister, with fingertips he gently puts the film on to the rear spool of the projector, then he very gently eases the film through the machine and hooks it up to the front reel.

"It's ready"

The picture flicks to life on the painted wall and gets focused in just as the government warning appears on screen.

"Cool" they say in unison

The grainy black and white image moves erratically as the cameraman moves around the round filming the image as if he was actually filming the action from his field of vision. Several people dressed in white overalls and face masks enter the room watched by someone in uniform from a nearby window.

"Did you see that one?" says the running man pointing to one of the characters on screen. "I'm sure it was a woman"

"Yeah I did and that one, did you see? I think he's got pointed teeth!"

"Nah don't be stupid! Only vampires and the Ferengi have teeth like that!"

"Perhaps it _was _the Ferengi! How do you know eh!? It's the one carrying the clip board I'm interested in, the one with the tuffs of hair sticking out the back of his mask"

"Whys that?"

"Because if we can get a good look at it, then we might get an idea of whom……"

At that moment the camera pans over to the metal gurney what the masked people have been surrounding. The sheet is pulled back to reveal….

"God that looks So fake! Just look what that ones doing to its chest cavity! That's not even a medical scalpel it looks like something they'd stock in that stupid gift shop over the road!"

"Is that that silly putty they're taking out of its belly?"

"I dunno, what they are doing to that creatures eyes is a bit scary"

"Did it that bit just deflate a bit? But it looks like the woman's blowing it back up again"

The film runs out.

"Do you think its real though? A real alien?"

"It must be, my father can't of kept it all these years for nothing if it wasn't real could he?"

"Watch it again?"

"Sure"

And with that, Garry and his friend Tom Twinning reload the film and watch it again.

The End

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